Wanted By The Billionaire Wolf (Heroes of Shifter Creek 4) by Clara Moore Page B

should,” Tristan grumbled.
    Sharee looked up sharply. He seemed startled, as though he wasn’t supposed to say that out loud. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    He swallowed visibly. “Nothing, never mind,” he said quickly, disappearing behind the screen of his iMac.
    Sharee watched him curiously for another moment or two, and then she decided she was probably better off not knowing just what was going through his head.
    “Before you start typing away,” she said when she saw him get ready for one of his intense writing sessions, “should we go over your plan for tomorrow?”
    Tristan looked around the computer at her, a lost expression on his face. “What’s tomorrow?”
    Sharee stared at him. Was he serious? “You’re meeting Derek for lunch, to discuss the tour for the new book.” You know, the one where you kill off the protagonist, again ? she wanted to add, but she didn’t. She figured she had made her thoughts on the subject clear enough.
    “That’s tomorrow ?”
    Sharee sighed. Like most geniuses, Tristan was always prone to distraction, but lately his brain seemed to be more scattered than usual. “Yes,” she said patiently, “that’s tomorrow.”
    “Cancel it. Please,” he added as an afterthought, but that one polite word didn’t do anything to sweeten the blow.
    Sharee stared at him in shock. “What?”
    “You heard me. In fact, I would appreciate it if you canceled all my appointments for the next three days.”
    “You don’t have anything else,” she said automatically, his schedule imprinted in her mind.
    Tristan grinned, pleased. “Perfect.”
    Sharee took a deep, steadying breath. She felt the beginnings of a headache forming in that spot between her eyes, right on top of the bridge of her nose. “Tristan,” she said, as calmly as she could, “you can’t cancel on your publisher two months before your tour begins. You need to sort out the details.”
    “I’ll do it next week.”
    “You’ve pushed it back enough. You really need to do this.”
    “And I will,” he said. “Next week.”
    Oh, for fuck’s sake! “Tristan—”
    “Sharee, I mean it.” He cut her off sharply. “Back off.”
    Sharee snapped her mouth shut. She stared at him, dumbfounded. She watched as he pushed the chair away from the desk and stood up. She watched as he strode towards the doorway, and that’s when she finally snapped out of it.
    “Where are you going?” she finally found her voice to ask.
    Tristan didn’t look at her as he replied, “I’m going for a walk.”
    Sharee glanced out the window. Sometime during their absurd exchange, it had begun to pour.
    “It’s raining… Tristan!”
    Of course, he didn’t listen. He never did. She listened to the front door open and close.
    Sharee sat back in her chair, stunned. Over the past couple of months, Tristan had been especially weird. He seemed to grow more and more restless by the day, so much so that not even his writing seemed to help anymore. She had tried to coax him into talking about it a few times, but she could never get past his tight-lipped defenses.
    She got up and walked over to his desk. She opened the file for his latest novel again, and sat down to read those last two chapters one more time. There was a darkness there, and for the first time Sharee found herself considering the idea that maybe the increasing bleakness in Tristan’s tales mirrored his feelings. After all, it was all too clear that something was seriously bothering him.
    Up until now, however, whatever gloomy thoughts were going through his head had never affected his career. As his assistant, Sharee knew she had to put a stop to it before he did some serious damage to his work. She shuddered, already dreading the conversation.
    Small steps, she told herself. One thing at a time.
    Right now, the first step would be to inform Derek that one of his best authors was not going to discuss the tour. Again .
    Sharee took a deep breath and picked up the